EEVblog #779 - How To Measure Product Battery Cutoff Voltage

[AF6LJ]

Nice one; however, no mention of the financial backgroud.  Also, no discussion of the stainless steel sleeve.  Probably for good reason.   Why isn't this sort of scam treated as a criminal activity.

What they are doing isn't illegal, it may be unethical. If you made unethical behavior illegal then who gets to decide what is unethical and what isn't?

[PGrant]

You just know someone is going to send in one of those monkeys to the mailbag.

[EEVblog]

What they are doing isn't illegal

Correct. Nothing illegal about being fundamentally wrong or ignorant. And nothing illegal about wild exaggerated marketing claims. e.g. the classic "Up to 8x" that they use.
Products like this need to live and die in the marketplace of ideas.
At least this product can do something, unlike something like homeopathic "medicine". a.k.a water.

[firewalker]

They are cornered... Could they attack you in any way for using parts of their video?

Alexander.

[kd6oji]

I am thinking we need to plunk down some cash and (God forbid) buy a batteriser to debunk their own product.. I find it laughable that they don't use their own product in their rebuttal videos to Dave.. should they NOT have faith in their own product? I doubt Dave could buy it directly, he's probably the only guy on their blacklist.. lol..

[EEVblog]

I am thinking we need to plunk down some cash and (God forbid) buy a batteriser to debunk their own product..

You can bet your bottom dollar I'll get my hands on some...

[AF6LJ]

What they are doing isn't illegal

Correct. Nothing illegal about being fundamentally wrong or ignorant. And nothing illegal about wild exaggerated marketing claims. e.g. the classic "Up to 8x" that they use.
Products like this need to live and die in the marketplace of ideas.
At least this product can do something, unlike something like homeopathic "medicine". a.k.a water.

One of the reasons you let a product live or die on its own merits is because often products get "bad press" because someone with an interest in another product wants to limit competition.
You mentioned homeopathy, a word that describes a narrow section of the alternative health industry that is often misused and applied to a much larger segment of the alternative health industry.

The simple fact is; in the long run a free and open market for products is to the consumer's advantage. This becomes the great equalizer when it comes to propaganda both for and against a product.

In terms of this product the Batteriser the potential to render an AM pocket radio useless due to radiated and conducted EMI generated by the device isn't mentioned at all and may be an issue. In a backhanded way you are doing the Batteriser folks a favor by not even addressing this issue.

Even if that device worked; I wouldn't be caught dead using it on my portable short wave radio, for the simple reason I cannot be sure this device isn't a broadband noise generator.

[FrankBuss]

I used a very similar power supply as the Batteriser guy in the video, until I bought a professional 3 channel Siglent power supply. I guess it is OEM from some Chinese manufacturer: http://cgi.ebay.de/151770505940
In their video description (http://tinyurl.com/pnwpj6f) they write that it is a "constant power supply box". I know this is wrong, because you can only set it to constant voltage, and it goes to constant current, if the selected current is reached, neither is constant power.

But their video is smart: I think they want to suggest that because the open loop voltage of the battery is still 1.2V, that the Batterieser could power the monkey. Of course they don't say this, the whole video is meaningless, but the presentation is clean and nice. I suspect if someone without basic electrical knowledge would see this video and then Dave's facepalms video, they would still believe in the Batteriser.

BTW: what are the boards on the table? Looks like some homebrew electronic loads.

[perfect_disturbance]

Dave,  You should dig up some sort of motorized toy and some dead batteries and measure the voltage at the battery terminals with the toy off and turned on to show how the voltage on a dead battery drops under load.

[EEVblog]

But their video is smart: I think they want to suggest that because the open loop voltage of the battery is still 1.2V, that the Batterieser could power the monkey. Of course they don't say this, the whole video is meaningless, but the presentation is clean and nice. I suspect if someone without basic electrical knowledge would see this video and then Dave's facepalms video, they would still believe in the Batteriser.

Yeah that's likely. Also because, well, people "want to believe". I agree that the video is actually deceptively clever.

BTW: what are the boards on the table? Looks like some homebrew electronic loads.

I believe they are their test boards, some photos on their Indiegogo page IIRC.

[EEVblog]

Dave,  You should dig up some sort of motorized toy and some dead batteries and measure the voltage at the battery terminals with the toy off and turned on to show how the voltage on a dead battery drops under load.

I showed this in a previous video on the 0.8V energy discharge logging.
But I just got the idea that I might do something more substantial along these lines...

[Brutte]

BTW Batterizer's only goal is to maximize profits so their response was also maximizing it and was quite clever (you must agree) as it was only targeting at 99% of their customers (those technically challenged). There was no point in calculating an ESR, ionic resistance or power the Weller as their target audience does not require that actions to get convinced.

However, your (Dave's) answer and language was targeting that 1% of the customers who already know it is a scam.. Thus - funny but ineffective presentation (sorry, Dave). And too lengthy.

[LabSpokane]

BTW Batterizer's only goal is to maximize profits so their response was also maximizing it and was quite clever (you must agree) as it was only targeting at 99% of their customers (those technically challenged). There was no point in calculating an ESR, ionic resistance or power the Weller as their target audience does not require that actions to get convinced.

However, your (Dave's) answer and language was targeting that 1% of the customers who already know it is a scam.. Thus - funny but ineffective presentation (sorry, Dave). And too lengthy.

Dave is not a Madision Avenue marketing firm.  It's almost pointless to try and compete with this super-slick presentation that Batteroo has.  That kind of marketing takes money and time.  And based on the ridiculous test "setups" that is obviously where a ton of Batteroo's money is going.  The product must be being designed by a third party design house, because no one inside Batteroo, including Dr. Bob, seems to have a clue what they're talking about.  If he did, they would not have needed to bring in this third party "professor" to explain the product testing.

Dave will never be able push out the volume of videos he has if he has to spend two weeks scripting, editing, and condensing each one.  It's just an enormous amount of work to do, and too much to expect from what's a one-person shop in this regard.  I'd much rather just let Dave be Dave, and let him be productive. 

Besides, when Dave got to "Monkey Under Test," I just laughed so hard, it was all worth it. 

[maelli]

Dave, you should leave all your scopes on, with calibrator signal and badly compensated probes, makes you much more credible 

[Gribo]

Great video. BTW, what monkeys do is to fling poo, which happens after you shove an AA somewhere 

[TheElectricChicken]

Dave, you should leave all your scopes on, with calibrator signal and badly compensated probes, makes you much more credible 

Leave a few amps lying around on the bench and blame Putin a lot. A LOT.

[Ampere]

Batteriser is really grasping at straws at this point. I enjoyed watching the monkey, though.

And the toy was pretty funny, too.

[Fungus]

For the "electronics engineer's workbench" in the video you should have said "That's not an electronics engineer's workbench, THIS is an electronic engineer's workbench....insert pic of EEVBLOG office"

PS: It went on way too long. Definitely not a video people could show to random public. Should stick to the facts - batteriser say one thing in the video then contradict themselves in the FAQ.

[TiN]

It's hard to take Dave's talking seriously and looking on teh monkey drawing with probes from ass, same time 

P.S. To be honest, somewhat too much attention for batterizer stuff. You promoting their faulty product for free. 

[1xrtt]

I am thinking we need to plunk down some cash and (God forbid) buy a batteriser to debunk their own product..

You can bet your bottom dollar I'll get my hands on some...

I will not. For $10 a pack, this guy will make bootloads of money just from the people buying to see if it works. And when  they're convinced it doesn't, how many will take the hassle of returning it?

[TheElectricChicken]

P.S. To be honest, somewhat too much attention for batterizer stuff. You promoting their faulty product for free. 

I know what you mean, I want one of those scam projectors from the van scam video !!!

[MobileWill]

Did you guys see the flashlight drain test. Why limit it to 2hrs?
Can't believe so many people are supportive of them. I love being an engineer and knowing the world around us.

[apis]

What they are doing isn't illegal

Correct. Nothing illegal about being fundamentally wrong or ignorant. And nothing illegal about wild exaggerated marketing claims. e.g. the classic "Up to 8x" that they use.
Products like this need to live and die in the marketplace of ideas.
At least this product can do something, unlike something like homeopathic "medicine". a.k.a water.

One of the reasons you let a product live or die on its own merits is because often products get "bad press" because someone with an interest in another product wants to limit competition.
You mentioned homeopathy, a word that describes a narrow section of the alternative health industry that is often misused and applied to a much larger segment of the alternative health industry.

The simple fact is; in the long run a free and open market for products is to the consumer's advantage. This becomes the great equalizer when it comes to propaganda both for and against a product.

Being wrong and ignorant is legal (sadly ) but deliberately lying to sell people snake oil is not. It is probably hard to tell "beyond reasonable doubt" which is which but It would definitely be illegal to lie in the EU and Likely Austraila/New Zeeland too. I would be surprised if not in the USA/Canada as well. The problem in this case I suspect is they are not selling a product, they are doing a crowd-funding campaign. People are not technically buying stuff, they are donating money to fund something that might seem worthwhile if you believe their bs.

A free and open market doesn't mean we should accept unethical business practices. It means the government shouldn't try to micromanage the economy but rather let (honest) businesses be regulated by supply and demand and other free market mechanism. Even the communist have realised that this is a pretty good idea. But a government that can put an end to unethical businesses in a lawful manner is a necessary evil or else you get stuff like this: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/i-wish-all-chinese-products-were-made-with-this-care/msg728761/#msg728761 
Watch that and tell me you aren't grateful the FDA makes sure the food you buy wasn't fished out of a gutter! If it was only up to the free market we would still have slavery and all kinds of atrocities.

In fact, regulation is necessary to maintain a free market, if there was no regulation things would quickly deteriorate into monopolies and oligarch rule.

[apis]

Did you guys see the flashlight drain test. Why limit it to 2hrs?
Can't believe so many people are supportive of them. I love being an engineer and knowing the world around us.

I'm starting to believe they are mostly fake accounts and people who's been paid to comment, these Batteroo guys are beyond pathetic and they've been caught with their pants down a few times already.

[Fungus]

deliberately lying to sell people snake oil is not. It is probably hard to tell "beyond reasonable doubt" which is which but It would definitely be illegal to lie in the EU and Likely Austraila/New Zeeland too. I would be surprised if not in the USA/Canada as well. The problem in this case I suspect is they are not selling a product, they are doing a crowd-funding campaign. People are not technically buying stuff, they are donating money to fund something that might seem worthwhile if you believe their bs.

Indiegogo has a definite written policy: https://www.indiegogo.com/about/terms

"Campaign Owners are not permitted ... to scam others. If the Campaign is claiming to do the impossible or it's just plain phony, don't post it.  Campaign Owners shall not make any false or misleading statements in connection with their Campaigns."

If you believe this is a scam or claiming to do the impossible, or making misleading statements then drop them a line at this link...

Indiegogo also wants to foster "trust" and "safety":
https://support.indiegogo.com/hc/en-us/articles/526996-How-Does-Indiegogo-Foster-Trust-Safety-

If you think the batteriser people are breaching trust (eg. by lying to people in their promotional material) then let them know.

You could also write to them if you believe this product may be harmful (eg. by over-draining batteries) or risky (eg. by fooling battery indicators in devices which need to check battery levels before writing to SD cards, causing data loss if the battery runs out of juice at that moment).